Published on : Thursday, February 20, 2020
The officers sealed off and searched the flat in Hanau’s Kesselstadt district, near the scene of one of the shootings, after following up witness statements on a getaway car. The police said work to confirm the identities of the two bodies at the home was still underway, and they could not immediately give details either on them or the identities of the victims of the earlier shootings.
This gun-attacks targeted bars in Hanau, about 20 km (12 miles) from Frankfurt, where armed police quickly fanned out and police helicopters roamed the sky looking for those responsible for the bloodshed. The police officers swarmed central Hanau, cordoning off the area of one of the shootings as a helicopter hovered overhead.
A man suspected of fatally shooting nine people in the German city of Hanau was found dead at his home early Thursday, hours after the attacks in and outside two shisha lounges.
The officers also found another body at the same address, police said. The police gave no details of the suspected gunman but said “there are currently no indications of further perpetrators”.
They did not give details of his possible motive or how he died, or specify why they believe “with a high degree of probability” that he was the assailant. The number of dead in the shootings Wednesday evening rose to nine, a police statement said.
The officers sealed off and searched the flat in Hanau’s Kesselstadt district, near the scene of one of the shootings, after following up witness statements on a getaway car. Police said work to confirm the identities of the two bodies at the home was still underway, and they couldn’t immediately give details either on them or the identities of the victims of the earlier shootings.
The attacks targeted bars in Hanau, about 20km (12 miles) from Frankfurt, where armed police quickly fanned out and police helicopters roamed the sky looking for those responsible for the bloodshed.
The first attack occurred at the “Midnight” bar in the centre of the city around 10pm Wednesday, police and reports said. Three people were killed in front of the building, local media said, with witnesses reporting hearing a dozen shots. The attacker fled the scene by car, according to police. There was then a second shooting at Arena Bar. At least five people were also seriously wounded in the attacks, reports said.
A silver Mercedes covered by what looked like a survival blanket could be seen behind a police cordon and surrounded by officers in front of “Arena Bar”, with shattered glass on the floor.
The mayor of Hanau, Claus Kaminsky, told mass circulation Bild that it had been “a terrible night”. Shisha lounges are places where people gather to smoke flavoured tobacco from Middle Eastern water pipes. Germany has been targeted in recent years by several extremist attacks, one of which killed 12 people in the heart of Berlin in December 2016. The far-right attacks have become a particular concern for German authorities.
In October, a deadly anti-Semitic gun attack in the eastern city of Halle on the holy day of Yom Kippur underscored the rising threat of neo-Nazi violence. The rampage, in which two people were shot dead, was streamed live.
On Friday police arrested 12 members of a German extreme right group believed to have been plotting “shocking” large-scale attacks on mosques similar to the ones carried out in New Zealand last year. A gunman reportedly rang the doorbell and shot people in the smoking area, killing five people including a woman, according to mass-circulation Bild, adding that the victims were of Kurdish origin.
Tags: germany, Hanau, Kesselstadt district